


All mine towers crumble down, the flowers gasping under rubble

by EstrangedFamiliar



Category: Kingdom Hearts (Video Games)
Genre: Ambiguous/Open Ending, Angst, Blindfolds, Hurt No Comfort, Restraints, Sora Whump (Kingdom Hearts), Soriku (if you reaaaaally squint), Struggling, Whump, broken trust, slight body horror
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-15
Updated: 2020-09-15
Packaged: 2021-03-06 15:07:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,197
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26470870
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/EstrangedFamiliar/pseuds/EstrangedFamiliar
Summary: Where dreams are not dreams at all. Where falsehoods lay to rest. Dive into the Heart, and find what secrets lie within. Because not everyone is as they seem, not even the brightest of stars.Not even the strongest of heroes.(Sora is forced to confront the darkest depths of his Heart, and he has a startling realisation.)
Kudos: 14





	All mine towers crumble down, the flowers gasping under rubble

**Author's Note:**

> Sorry, Sora, the whumper in me took over
> 
> title from the song 'The Mind Electric' by Miracle Musical

»»————- ♔ ————-««

There was no awareness at first. Only a dark breeze whistling in Sora’s ear. It curled around him in a snarling spiral, until it became so loud, that it pushed him into consciousness. His eyes fluttered open, or at least they tried to. He was met with resistance, dark eyelashes pushing against cotton. 

He came alive with a soft groan, a dull ache rousing him from a soft-hearted slumber, though he barely felt rested at all. Through lethargy, Sora tried to remove the blindfold covering his eyes, only to come to realize that his arms were suspended above him. With a soft frown, he tried to twist and turn. 

“So,” a voice rumbles, making Sora freeze, “you’re awake.”

With startling realization, Sora recognizes that voice.

“Riku…?” There’s vulnerability in his voice, prominent in the way his brow dips. Soft hands brush Sora’s cheek, making him flinch at the abrupt contact. The hand trails down from Sora’s cheek, clutching Sora’s chin into an almost vice-like grip. Sora inhales sharply, and he tries again. “Riku, what’s--” but he’s cut off, the hand tightening around his jaw, and Sora’s whimpering at the contact.

It’s hard to tell what’s going on with the blindfold, but he doesn’t need to see to feel when a fist connects with his stomach. There’s a smothered cry, dampened by Sora’s taken jaw, and he can feel his body swinging slightly from the impact. Along with the dull throb that now swells from his belly, comes a deep, phantom ache, and Sora begins to squirm.

“Don’t fight it, Sora. It’ll all be over soon.” The hand grasping at his jaw tightly disappears, and Sora takes the opportunity. Desperately, he twists and turns again.

 _“Riku!_ Please, what’s going _on?”_ Sora pleads, searching desperately for some kind of meaning. And even though he’d not heard Riku’s footsteps, the answer that he’s given comes from far away.

“What do you mean? You _asked_ for this.” 

“Asked for wha--” 

A strike, causing a sudden bright flash of pain to bloom across his cheek, and Sora yelps. A hand coils around his throat, making Sora physically recoil from the tight. The grip only tightens.

“I don’t _get_ you, Sora,” Riku hisses in his ear, lips brushing against it in a feather-light touch. “You _caused_ all of this to happen. You _made me like this.”_ And Sora doesn’t know where it comes from, but he begins to cry, along with a sense of shame. Somewhere, in his mind, he couldn’t help but feel as though Riku were right. He didn’t understand, but yet he _really did._

And even with that eating away at him, he responds resolutely, “I don’t know what you’re talking about. I only woke up here. I didn’t _put_ myself here.” His voice wavers, and as he shifts and squirms under Riku’s hand wrapped around his throat, his arms _ache._ The muscles in his arms tremble. 

“Didn’t you?” Riku counters darkly, and suddenly Sora feels less sure than ever. There was something in Riku’s voice, a purring, smooth rumble that chilled Sora to the bone. And even though Riku was so close, breath fanning his cheek, everything about his friend’s touch was cold. Somehow, even his _voice_ sounded cold. Shivering, Sora stutters on.

“No...n- no, I _didn’t.”_

Riku hums, and the hand that was curled around his throat pulled away entirely, leaving Sora alone. He couldn’t track where Riku went because no matter how he turned his head, he could not hear any footfalls. 

But Sora tries anyway. He goes utterly quiet, even holding his breaths in hopes of hearing just the slightest of sounds. But that telltale heartbeat without a heart never came, and it unsettled Sora greatly. 

He’s not expecting another strike to come, but when it does, Sora lets out a surprised cry. It registers that the strike was different, somehow. As he feels himself swinging again, his mind tries to figure out what exactly he’d been hit with, and it only hits him when...well, when another hit comes.

The handle of Riku’s keyblade connects with Sora’s soft middle once again, enough for Sora to swing further and further, like some demented punching bag. 

“Stop!” Sora cries, but he is not heard. When he swings back in Riku’s direction, the handle connects once more. 

“I won’t.” When Sora swings back once more, he’s met with something other than a blunt keyblade. Instead, he realizes, his body is met with a quick, unyielding kick. It connects with a bruise that had already began to form, and the pain causes him to wail. Before long, he’s gasping and coughing, the constant swinging making him dizzy. 

“Riku!” Sora pleads, _“Stop, pl- please!”_

But Riku doesn’t acknowledge his begging, pausing his swings. 

“I don’t get you, Sora. You beg me to stop, but you put yourself here. You trapped us. _You_ did this to us.” And even though Sora was starting to believe it, his words whispered challenge.

“W- _What,_ Riku? _What_ di- _iid_ I d-do?” The desperation was clear in his voice, words thickly laced in anxiety. “I w- want to fff- _ix_ it!”

Instead of answering, hands brushed against his cheek, causing him to flinch with a sharp inhale. A thumb slid its way under the cotton fabric, tugging gently and letting the knot keeping it together come loose.

The blindfold is pulled off, and Sora squints as his eyes burn at the sudden light.

Except, there’s barely any light at all. Blinking rapidly, Sora tries to make sense of all of it. When he looked around, all he was met with was nothing. Soul-sucking, mind-numbing _nothingness._ It rattled Sora to his core, sucking in a breath he didn’t know he needed. As his head turned to look at his surroundings, he only continued to see void. No beginning, no end, no walls or floors to stand on or touch. Chancing to look up, his stomach drops as he stares up at his bound wrists, held together with two metal cuffs, attached to one long chain that went up into the ceiling. Except, there was no ceiling at all. The chain stretched far and long, until the darkness swallowed it into the broad emptiness. It seemed to stretch on forever, with no end in sight.

However, Sora had failed to notice what was so blatantly in front of him. It was the only thing in the empty void that Sora could see. And when Sora finally notices, he gasps aloud. 

Right before him is Riku, but it’s not _his_ Riku at all. This Riku’s eyes are their usual magnificent colour, but there’s a strange sense of _wrong_ when Sora looks into them. They are disturbed, giving a glowing aura amongst the rest of his distractions. All up his neck are black vein-like tendrils, curling around his neck in thick, intricate swirls, all leading up to the right side of his face. The black veins all amass as one big shattered, spidery patch over that side of his face. His hair is long again, pulled back into a tight ponytail with a few strands left to frame his dark, cruel face. 

It’s not just Riku’s neck and face that are infected, his arms are enveloped with the same ink black look. This time, they seemed to be dripping, as if Riku had dipped his hands into a can of black paint, as droplets of the stuff dripped from his fingertips. Oddly enough, though, the black mass seemed to be a part of Riku’s arm entirely, fading at his forearms into those thin black veins, crawling up the rest of his bicep. 

With a snarl, Riku steps closer, and Sora flinches away.

“Do you see what you’ve done to me, Sora? How much you’ve _mutilated_ my body?” Sora tries to close his eyes when Riku steps closer, tries to turn his head away, but he’s stopped by Riku’s dark, slicked hand grabbing his chin roughly. Through force alone, Sora’s head is turned back. Tears prick at his eyes, they _burn_ as they meet Riku’s, and he whimpers. “Don’t shy away from your own destruction. _Take it all in.”_

“No…” Sora whimpers, and his jaw is gripped tighter. He squeezes his eyes shut.

_“Sora.”_

“No!” Sora says more sharply, his face tightening. 

“Sora, _look at me.”_

“No! I won’t!” There was fear, of _course_ there was fear. It threatened to pull Sora under, attached at his ankle with a heavy-weighted ball of crippling agony. Riku only began to grip him tighter, but he yanked his head away. He fought, and he squirmed, and he kicked out his legs as a way to ward off the _entity_ that was _not_ his best friend. 

However, Riku only snatched his ankle when it came swinging by, digging his nails into the exposed flesh and scratching down the length, right to his foot. Sora let out a cry of pain, and his eyes finally opened to catch a glimpse of the action before him. To his horror, he watched as veiny ink began to spiral up his leg from where Riku had scratched him, curling and crackling, splitting off into so many lines at once that he was struggling to keep track of how many there were. 

Sora kicked his leg out once more, nailing Riku squarely on the jaw, enough to knock him back. With his leg free, Sora continued to swing on that singular, thick chain keeping him suspended in the air. Though his stomach was crying in pain, and the sickly black ink crawling up his leg was beginning to feel as if it were burning him, Sora forced himself to become still, arms quivering with force as he began to breathe deep. His hand shook greatly as he stretched his sore palm wide open, and in that moment all he could hear was his own breaths. His mind went quiet, and with the peace of a calmed tide, Sora reached out into the darkness and called forth his keyblade, feeling that warm tingling sensation itch at his palm. 

In a flash of white light, Ultima appeared in his hand, sparkling and crackling with a fierce energy. With a clipped, swift motion, Sora swung the Keyblade at his chain, and jolted as he was dropped from the now severed chain. Like that, with weapon in hand, Sora hurtled towards the ground, and he could not shift himself in time to land at a better angle. He hit the ground with a muffled thud, landing on his side as his head knocked against the ground. Sora groaned, writhing in a momentary pain that seemed to be all-consuming, with no help from the stark bruises that were visibly littering his stomach. 

He knew, in all that pain, that Riku would not be too far behind in recovering from the frankly weak kick Sora had managed to swing. Without a doubt, he needed to get up and _fast._ And with a final exertion of the adrenaline he currently savoured, he lifted Ultima in the air, gasped a weak, painful _“Curaga!”_ and let his hand drop with a thud. Green light showered him from a few inches above his weak body, and his eyes reflected the sparkling magic as it enveloped his body entirely. Briefly, thick vines and bells made of white tulips grew before him, the tulip-bells tolling a final ring, before he felt warmth and energy begin to restore within his body.

Reinvigorated, Sora sat up with a groan, propping the tip of the Keyblade on the ground to hoist himself up to his feet. He saw, with dreadful clarity, that Riku was already back on his feet, and he looked _furious._ Riku’s fists were clenched, looking upon Sora with calm fury, shoulders squared and knees slightly bent. He looked as though ready to pounce.

“You can’t _ignore_ it, Sora. You can’t deny the Darkness that you _know_ lies within your heart. You can’t _deny_ the times you call upon it for power. You’re _dangerous._ You’re a _monster.”_

Sora winced as if he’d been physically struck, but he shook his head.

“I save people,” he shoots back, “I _help_ them.” And even though he tries to sound sure, his mnd returns back to Riku’s earlier words. _You caused all of this to happen._

“And in the midst of ‘helping’ others, you continue to destroy yourself. You see this body? Do you see how much your _helping people_ has gotten me?” Riku holds his hand palm-up, a gesture that almost looks as if he was reaching for Sora’s hand. Stubbornly, Sora watches, face twisted in pain and confusion. “I know you like the Darkness, Sora. I know that you treat it as though it’s not there, but find a little thrill in letting yourself go. You like to be consumed by it, because you become _unstoppable.”_

“I’ve never liked the Darkness!” Sora shouts, hand clenching around the handle of the Keyblade. “I never _liked_ that it was there, I never _liked_ what it did to me. If I knew how to save you, Riku, I’d do it in a heartbeat. _You know me.”_ Sora’s voice was laced with desperate fury, miserably trying to convince both parties of his truth. Riku only shook his head in dismay, face crinkling into something akin to sadness.

“I know you called me here for a reason. You want me to stop you, before the Darkness in your Heart gets out of hand. I intend to keep that promise to you, Sora. One way or another.” Riku never tore his eyes away from Sora, lifting his right hand in the air. Sora could only recoil as he saw the Keyblade that had been summoned. Because as the light flashed in Riku’s hand, instead of the newer, bigger Keyblade Riku had been gifted, was _Soul Eater_ and _The Keyblade of People’s Hearts._

Riku was _dual-wielding._

But Sora had no time to be astonished, because as soon as Riku had poised Soul Eater above his head, he was launching himself at Sora with unbridled intent. The sadness from before had dissipated, along with that gut-wrenching fury that had predated the _almost_ sympathy.

It was a battle of speed, and Sora was struggling to keep up. Where he was able to block one or two attacks from the first Keyblade, he would find himself completely blindsided as the other rained bloody fury upon him. There was no banter, no words exchanged between the two, just dead-set determination and focus. 

At one point, Sora thought he’d finally managed to take Riku by surprise, tucking and rolling so quickly out of his way, managing to get behind him. But he had been sorely mistaken, as an elbow connects with his cheek, making his head snap to the side painfully quick. Following the under-handed jab, Riku spins around quickly and slices a diagonal slash across Sora’s chest. 

Sora collapses to his knees, gasping and coughing as blood begins to seep from the wound reaching from his shoulder down to his hip. Keyblade’s weren’t usually that sharp, but he supposed when they were born from Darkness, anything went.

He could do nothing as he barely managed to keep himself upright, wavering and wobbling as pain began to quickly take him over. Breathing became harder to accomplish, and Sora couldn’t help but notice the way his vision began to spot and blur around the edges. He could do nothing as he watched Riku approach him. Sora’s eyes slipped shut in defeat, shoulders sagging as he awaited the end.

Instead, he heard a voice. 

“Sora.”

When Sora opened his eyes, he was not met with that monster in the form of Riku. Instead, he stared with wide eyes as a clearer Riku, _his_ Riku, he realized, stared down at him, Keyblade outstretched. Sora could feel the tip pressing against his chest. He did not tear his eyes away from Riku. 

The blade lifted upwards, gently tipping Sora’s chin until it looked towards the sky. Sora did not try to fight it. What he was met with, though, was not something he’d been prepared for. Shining right down at him, was the familiar sight of intricate stained glass mural, presenting Sora with an array of his friends, alongside an image of himself, his younger self, sleeping peacefully.

It was his Heart Station. 

They were no longer in that strange, black void. Somewhere, in the midst of that fight, they’d been transported to the core of his being. And right above him, was a giant mirror-like ceiling, reflecting the scene upside down. 

He could not help the tears that flooded his eyes, and he hiccuped as the faces of his friends stared down at him, even with their eyes closed.

“Are you ready?” 

Riku’s voice returned Sora back to the moment, and when he looked back, his Riku was gone, leaving behind the infected, inky mess that stared down at him with an eerily calm face. The tip of Soul Eater was pressing into his chest again, but Sora’s face smoothed out into determined sorrow. With a final, shaky breath, he nodded. 

“Yes.” 

Riku nodded calmly, and his other Keyblade disappeared from his left hand, instead resting on an upper part of the blade. He pushed forward, and Sora let out a choked off cry as the blade began to bury itself into his chest, and he shuddered against the cool metal as his body gave its last final breath. His world faded to black, the image of Riku’s mutilated face hsi only goodbye.

  
  


»»————- ♔ ————-««

  
  


When Sora awoke, there was no breeze. No beat, no melody. Just a splash of phantom water that had him jerking up. His chest was tight, painfully so, but as he clawed at it, feeling himself for a hole, or a diagonal slash, he found only raised skin, a perfect _X_ on his chest that would remind him of all that he’d sacrificed. 

He rubbed at either wrist, expecting to see marks of bruising or chafing, but found nothing of the sort. It led him to just stare down at his hands, watching how they shook and trembled with absolutely no force to be causing such a reaction. Even when he clenched them into fists, their quivering did not cease, and Sora found himself beginning to softly weep as relief flooded his senses. _A dream. It was all just a dream._

But as his palms soothed against his chest, he heard a voice that was not his own.

 _Remember your promise, Sora._

And somehow, Sora understood. What had transpired, was not a thing of fiction, but a tale of caution. Both real and unreal alike. He understood it so greatly, that he could no longer look any of his friend’s in the eye. He could not allow them to come near, for fear that they would too be tainted by the infectious ink that still ran up his leg, invisible to all but himself. Whatever part of him that had called upon that Riku to stop him, Sora hoped to thank him one day. Because Sora would walk his way out of his own nightmare. 

All it took was a little help from his friend. 


End file.
